Review: Chrome Soyuz Backpack

The new Chrome Soyuz, which becomes widely available for the first time this week, is an ambitious (if slightly crazed) re-imagining of the urban commuter backpack. It's a weird hybrid of a river-rafting drybag and laptop case, all contained within a stylish wedge of black and red nylon. We've never seen anything quite like it, and well, we love the thing.

The innermost part of the Soyuz – the part closest to your back – is a narrow but deep rolltop compartment that's been waterproofed on the inside with a coating of gray urethane. Empty, it collapses down to virtually nothing. Full, it expands enough to easily swallow your gym clothes, a pair of running shoes, a small towel and a windbreaker. It can also swallow your arm up to the elbow, an experience that probably feels a bit like reaching down the gullet of a basking shark.

But this compartment must be carefully stuffed: Since it's next to your back, an uneven or sharp-cornered load (Jose Cuervo bottle, I'm looking at you) will poke your lumbar region, despite the pack's generous padding.

Outboard from the waterproof compartment is the laptop sleeve, which you access via a urethane-coated, heavy-duty side zipper. The side placement is odd, but facilitates access to the padded, two-sectioned interior. It easily accommodates laptops up to about a 15-inch screen size.

The outermost part of the Soyuz is the quick-access organizer pocket, riding on the pack's back and guarded by a Velcro sealed top flap. It's deep, so it can hold a lot – and that can also makes it hard to find all the crap that sifts to the bottom. Completing the picture is a tiny zippered pouch on the outside, just big enough to hold your earbuds and a bus pass, or, if you're crazy enough to stick it in an unpadded pouch on your back, an iPhone.

We put the Soyuz in the shower for a minute to simulate a monsoon-style downpour. Papers in the rolltop compartment and laptop sleeve remained bone-dry, but some water dripped around the edges of the flap into the organizer pockets, and index cards in the outermost zippered pocket were completely drenched.

The laptop sleeve and organizer pocket together form a wedge shape that's wider at the top than at the bottom, making the overall backpack extremely trim when the waterproof compartment is empty. Filled up, it's only slightly wider.

It's that narrowness that makes the Soyuz such a good commuter pack. It sits comfortably behind your back, letting you weave through traffic on your fixie without fear of snagging on the projecting mirrors of double-parked delivery trucks. It can ride between your knees on a crowded train. And it even tucks neatly below an airplane seat, leaving just enough space on either side to squeeze in your feet so you can stretch your legs.

If you've got a computer, a city commute, and enough cash to afford this pricey pouch, the Chrome Soyuz is definitely an excellent container for all your stuff, Comrade.